Workplace misconduct reports hit 7-year high in 2025
NEW YORK, UNITED STATES — Fifty-five percent of United States employees said they experienced or witnessed serious workplace misconduct in 2025, up from 41% in 2024, according to HR Acuity’s annual benchmark study.
The 14-point spike ends a five-year stretch of declining complaints and marks the highest misconduct rate since 2018. The study, conducted with Isurus Market Research, surveyed 2,043 U.S. employees in January 2026.
The surge is real and cases are getting more complex
The volume increase alone does not capture the full pressure now falling on HR departments. Thirty-eight percent of affected workers dealt with four or more distinct types of misconduct in 2025 — up 14 points from 2024 — meaning each investigation demands more time, more expertise, and more documentation than before.
“Not only is misconduct rampant, but employees feel more empowered to speak up and are increasingly using AI to help report concerns, contributing to greater case complexity,” said Deb Muller, founder and CEO of HR Acuity.
Reporting rates did improve: 78% of those who experienced or witnessed misconduct filed a complaint, and 75% of those reports led to formal investigations — a 16-point jump from 2024.
Four gaps still keep one in five workers silent
Despite better reporting rates, 22% of affected employees never came forward — and the data shows exactly where companies are falling short. In-office workers reported at only 76 percent, compared to 86 percent for remote employees, even though 67 percent of incidents happened on-site.
The gap is even wider by job type: only 63 percent of hourly workers reported concerns, versus 97 percent of executives.
“The challenge for employee relations is now two-fold: to effectively handle greater volume and more complex investigations at scale and to dig into their data infrastructure to understand and reach the 22% of employees who still don’t speak up,” Muller said.
Fear of retaliation deepens the silence: 46% of quiet workers cited it as their reason for not reporting, yet fewer than half of companies that resolved complaints monitored for post-investigation retaliation.
As remote and hybrid work continues to reshape where misconduct surfaces and who witnesses it, internal HR teams face a capacity and visibility problem that traditional structures were not built to solve.
Outsourcing employee relations and workplace compliance to specialized third-party providers gives companies the investigation scale, data infrastructure, and independent oversight to close those gaps — and to sustain the accountability standards workforce now expects.
